Exceptions
by sweetmelody
Summary: She willingly made exception after exception for him, but in the end, she was no closer to having him than the first time they met. HarryGinny, post-Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

**Exceptions**

_She willingly made exception after exception for him, but in the end, she was no closer to having him than the first time they met. HarryGinny, post-Hogwarts._

**Chapter One**

Ginny Weasley was not happy.

"Why," she snarled as she struggled to close the bottom drawer on her dresser, "does everything—" she gave the drawer another forceful shove "—have to—" she pulled the drawer out again "—go so horribly—" she gave it one last push, putting all her weight behind it "—_wrong_?"

The drawer rocketed out of the dresser and smashed onto Ginny's foot. She gave a howl of pain and hopped onto her bed, glaring at the drawer littered with piles of clothes and scowling, red-faced and bad-tempered.

It had been another tiresome day at work. Her job as a staff writer for the Daily Prophet was a joke; her job title might as well have been staff house-elf for all the writing she actually did. She mostly scrambled around hurrying to do her superiors' bidding each day. Make coffee, deliver messages, run errands, clean spills, answer owls—anything and everything that needed to be done, with no willing volunteers to do it. Today, Lucinda Greene had swept the articles she was proofreading from her desk onto the floor and casually tipped a bottle of ink right over them, then declared in a falsely surprised voice, "Oh my goodness! How could I be so clumsy? Ginny, could you be a dear and clean that up for me?"

Ginny had been so angry that as she was siphoning the ink off the papers with her wand, she overdid the spell and the text from the articles disappeared along with the excess ink. Lucinda had hardly been able to keep the delight from her voice.

"Ginny, how could you? Now I have to ask for another copy of those articles, and you know how busy journalists can be! And—oh my goodness!" She jabbed the coffee pitcher on her desk with the crook of her elbow, and it smashed onto the ground, cracking into a dozen pieces and spraying black coffee across the floor. "I think you'd better clean that up without magic, since your elementary wandwork seems to be a bit unpredictable!"

Ginny had thought of many clever and biting things to say to Lucinda at that moment, but as she honestly could not afford to lose her job on top of everything else, she took a few deep breaths and forced herself to calm down enough to clean up the mess. One of her kinder coworkers had tried to catch her eye to give her a sympathetic look, but she angrily averted her eyes, not trusting herself to act civil toward anyone just yet.

Then of course, when she arrived at her flat after work, she'd found it exactly the way she left it: cold and untidy and lonely, with boxes still strewn across the floors and a few empty spaces reserved for the furniture she'd buy when she could afford it. She had moved in a week ago, determined to assert her independence by moving out of the house where she was fed three delicious meals by her mother each day, but she found herself regretting her decision at once. For one thing, Ginny discovered that she really could not cook. She struggled each evening attempting to cook up something halfway edible for herself, until Hermione came to the rescue and informed her about Muggle microwave ovens and frozen, premade dinners. But mostly, though she wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself as she was still determined to prove that she was a young lady perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she missed her family. She missed her parents and all of her idiotic brothers. And most of all, she missed Har—no, no, no, she did not miss him one bit, she told herself. But the fact of the matter was, coming home at the end of the day to an empty room without even someone to complain about work to was not her idea of the life she was supposed to lead after Hogwarts. She supposed she had never been quite realistic when she had made plans for the future.

All in all, she could not have said that she'd had a terrific day.

Ginny sighed and flopped onto her stomach on her bed. What she really needed was a new job, something she was passionate about. She'd even settle, at this point, for something that she didn't hate with a passion. She had thought that a job at the Daily Prophet would be perfect, since she was articulate and had her own dry, witty style of writing, but she only had two assignments in the month she had worked, one about an annual beauty pageant for Pygmy Puffs and the other covering a new international standard on cauldron bottom thicknesses. She wanted to do some _real_ reporting, and if she couldn't even do that, she definitely needed a new job.

Biting her lip, she sat on the edge of her bed and considered her options. She hadn't been accepted to train as an Auror; she had been one N.E.W.T. short. She didn't have the dedication for Healing, the patience to work in Muggle Relations, or the interest for banking. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had little choice but to endure her current job and hope that it would become more bearable over time. It didn't help that everyone else seemed to have found the perfect job, their own little niche in Wizarding society. Hermione was working in the Department of Protection and Regulation of Magical Creatures, taking her stance on elf rights to the government, and as she had been frightfully overzealous years before she had landed the position, she naturally attended to her job with the same overwhelming energy. Ron was helping George run Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, which was becoming an even greater success under his leadership, and Harry… Harry, of course, had been accepted for Auror training and was absolutely excelling in everything related to the subject.

But of course, she told herself quickly, the only reason Harry had made an appearance in her mind was because she was thinking about careers. She wasn't consciously _intending_ to think about him.

What Ginny really wanted to do—and she was embarrassed to admit it even to herself—was to play Chaser for a professional Quidditch team. But that was impossible, of course. She wasn't nearly good enough; positions like that were undoubtedly extremely difficult to obtain. She had not played competitively long enough, and it was silly to even imagine it as a possibility. Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought from her head.

But no sooner had she coaxed herself to stop dreaming about impossible careers, her mind wandered right onto the subject she was most reluctant to acknowledge: a certain green-eyed, messy-haired boy with whom she had not had a proper conversation with for almost two years now. And it certainly didn't help that everything—_everything—_reminded her of him.

_Stop it,_ she told herself sternly. _We're broken up. He's none of my business anymore._

Except her devious mind somehow managed to convince herself that he was still her business and, burying her face into her blankets, she succumbed to the temptation of thinking about him yet again.

As a general rule, Ginny was the one who did the breaking up. She had a knack for spotting when a relationship was doomed, and instead of dragging it on for a few more months and waiting to be dumped, she saved both herself and the boyfriend the trouble by doing the dumping early. She did so with Michael, and she did the same with Dean. Harry, however, was a different matter. She had come to realize that the regular rules never applied to Harry.

When they went out for that brief but glorious one month and eleven days during her fifth year, she knew that a breakup was imminent. She knew that before the summer was over, Harry would end the relationship because he was going to be his normal bloody noble self and put her safety above their happiness. She could have ended it herself; it was inevitable, and Harry would probably be grateful that he wouldn't have to do the dirty work. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Each day spent with Harry was indescribably sweet and precious to her, and she was willing to delay the end as long as she could, even though she knew that the end could come any day.

And so, he'd broken up with her on the day of Dumbledore's funeral. She'd cried buckets afterward, though of course she never allowed him to see. And then he'd gone off on his mysterious quest to defeat Voldemort with Ron and Hermione, and she hadn't seen or heard from him for ten months.

She thought that they would simply continue from where they left off when the war was over, but that was far too idealistic on her part. The first time they were alone together, Ginny wanted to throw herself into his arms and savor his solidity and warmth, but something made her check herself. Too much time had passed, and too much had changed. She had hesitated, and he stood uncertainly on the other side of the room for a few moments before they hugged, somewhat awkwardly. The next week afforded them no time to be together; Harry was so busy answering press releases and helping with war cleanup that she only managed to see him a few times, his face haggard with stress and exhaustion.

The day of Fred's funeral, he'd disappeared. She had woken up to a note on her windowsill:

_Ginny, I'm taking some time off to be alone. I'm sorry. I know you are angry and disappointed in me. I'm so sorry. – Harry_

Angry and disappointed was an understatement. Ginny was livid. She could not believe that he had the audacity and the blatant disrespect for her family to forego attending Fred's funeral. She could not forgive his pathetic excuse for needing to be alone, and she could not understand why he couldn't just show up at her dead brother's funeral and _then_ take some time off. She was completely, thoroughly disgusted with his cowardice. When he returned two weeks later, nervous and contrite, she had shown him exactly what she felt and what she thought of him. She'd slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

Harry had stepped back a little, eyes pleading. "Ginny, _please_ let me explain how sorry I am. Please hear me out—"

"No," she said, her words tumbling over each other in her fury. "_No_. You don't deserve to explain yourself. How could you not go to Fred's funeral? He's my _brother_, Harry, my family, and your friend! How could you just disappear for two weeks? I can't believe how—how unbelievably selfish and disrespectful and irresponsible you were. You disgust me. I never want to see you again."

He'd looked at her, stunned. "Ginny—"

"No, Harry. Just _leave_. It's over." And without waiting for him for say another word, she had slammed the door on him.

She had been savagely glad when Ron and Hermione expressed similar sentiments. Ron had punched Harry in the face, and Hermione had screamed herself hoarse at him. Just a week later, though, Ginny had walked past the three of them sitting rather too cozily together, buried in textbooks and notes as they struggled to learn the seventh-year material that they missed the previous year. Ginny's voice was shaking when she accosted Ron and Hermione after dinner that night, rising accusatorily as she demanded, "How could you just sit there and study with him as if nothing had happened?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged a worried glance.

"Look, Ginny, Harry's been through a lot," Ron began nervously.

"I know that, but that does _not_ mean that he can ditch my brother's funeral and go wandering off by himself!"

"We're not trying to excuse him," Hermione said quickly. "What he did was terrible, and he knows it, and he regrets it. But can you please try to understand? The pressure and the guilt became too much for him—all these years of being the Chosen One, of being responsible for the lives of so many people—I think he finally cracked. He couldn't handle it anymore, especially when faced with the funeral of a friend whose death was—you know how he blamed himself. Can you please, please try to forgive him?"

Ginny barely heard her. "What he did was despicable," she said quietly, and strode out of the room.

She avoided Harry as much as possible that summer, and after a while, she wasn't sure if she was avoiding him because she still hadn't forgiven him, or because she became so accustomed to it that she wasn't quite sure how to act if she stopped. Their brief, inevitable encounters were awkward and stilted. He never quite met her eyes when he spoke, and she came to dread these encounters and took special pains to avoid them. She was relieved when September drew near and she was able to prepare for a year of school without his constant presence.

At school, she had kept her mind off of him by throwing herself into her studies and Quidditch. She was made captain that year, and she flattered herself in thinking that the Gryffindor team had redefined victory in Quidditch. She never scored less than a hundred points per game singlehandedly as Chaser, and whether or not the Seeker caught the Snitch became inconsequential; it signaled the end of a game, but by no means the victor. Which was certainly a good thing, because the Gryffindor seeker, a small third-year boy named Allen Samuels, did not manage to catch the Snitch during a single game. And he had been the best she could find, after scouring every inch of Gryffindor Tower and throwing her heart into leading tryouts, and she had spent so much time training him one-on-one that the very sight of his face led her to spiral toward despondency. Gryffindor still won the Quidditch Cup, though. It was a glorious moment.

Harry did not write her that year, not once. She did not write to him either, not after the flushed, triumphant afterglow of Quidditch victories, or during those hours when she felt horribly, sickeningly lonely. And despite her constant reminders to herself that she did not need him or miss him one bit, she wondered, with some sadness and a bit of fear, why he didn't ever write her. She tried not to ask about him in her letters to Hermione and Ron, and devised clever roundabout ways to do so. And she tried, to no avail, to convince herself that she was certainly _not_ in love with him anymore, not after all these years.

She dreaded coming home after graduation that summer. She had hardly expected some kind of warm fuzzy reconciliation between her and Harry, but even she was stunned by the cold formality with which he treated her. After a week at home, she decided that it would be the best for everyone if she moved out. So against her mother's serious (and for once, quite valid) misgivings, she packed her bags and found herself a small flat in London. She broke the news to Hermione, declaring that she was moving on.

Hermione had not been pleased.

"Ginny," she began in her half-placating, half-exasperated voice, "I know I told you once before that it might be best to move on, but there's a difference between moving on when it's the wisest thing to do and moving on when there's really no reason to. Harry still has feelings for you, I _know_ he does, and giving up on him now, without trying to work things out, will only make both of you unhappy."

Her words, however, had done little to sway Ginny. In fact, Ginny was thoroughly frustrated with Hermione's irritating tendency to always be right and wished fervently to prove her wrong.

"Hermione, things are not working out, and they have not worked out in a long time, and I'm done. Things just didn't happen the way we wanted them to," she said. "And besides, it was silly to think that our relationship could last, anyway. We'd only gone out for a month, and then gone two years barely seeing each other, and we've both changed too much within that span of time. It's better for us to move on. And besides, if he cares about me at all, even as a friend, he would have written me and he would have at least acknowledged my existence this summer."

And with that, she'd marched out of the room, not wanting to hear Hermione's further admonishments, or allow Hermione to see her own guilty face.

And that was that.

She had been sure, about a year ago, that after the war, everything would be perfect. She would have the perfect job, the perfect house, and of course she would have Harry. But the war was over and done with, the Dark Lord defeated, and all she had was a crappy job that involved menial labor and minimal pay, a two-room flat with a leaky ceiling and creaky floorboards, and she most certainly did not have Harry.

And there she was again, thinking about Harry with a mixture of regret and disappointment. This was getting ridiculous. It simply would not do; she had promised herself that she would move on this time.

But no matter how much she tried to justify it to herself, the fact remained that breaking up with Harry was the stupidest thing she had ever done.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

A/N: So it's been a while… a long while… a long long long long while… but I was just itching to start writing again all of a sudden so here it is. The writing is by no means fantastic but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Ginny had never been so eager to climb out of bed the next morning.

It was Saturday. It was the end of her first miserable week of living alone, of being too prideful to even visit the Burrow in the evenings because she was determined to show her mother that she was enjoying her newfound independence. But that didn't matter today. Her mother had owled her, inviting her to spend the day at the Burrow, and after ascertaining from Hermione that Harry had Auror training that day, Ginny gleefully prepared for her visit home. _Home_. She missed the clutter, the noise, the smell of home so much that it had almost become a physical ache.

Ginny Apparated to the front porch of the Burrow and rapped briskly on the door, her toes squirming in anticipation. Her mother answered the door, clad in an apron and oven mitts. Ginny almost knocked her over in her eagerness to throw her arms around her. "Mom! I'm so glad to see you!"

Mrs. Weasley laughed as they made their way to the kitchen. "How was your week, Ginny?"

"It was fantastic," Ginny said brightly. "I love living in my own apartment."

Mrs. Weasley raised her eyebrows. "Yes, clearly you didn't miss us at all."

Ginny faltered for a moment. "Okay… it wasn't that great. I'm just excited to be home, that's all." She couldn't stop smiling at she glanced at the vegetables on the cutting board and the pots and pans busily stirring themselves. "It smells amazing, Mom. Do you need any help?"

"No, dear, why don't you go upstairs and help Hermione? I asked her to sort laundry."

"Okay!" Ginny ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs two at a time, yelling Hermione's name at the top of her lungs.

Hermione poked her head into the hallway. "Ginny, hi! Do you know where Ron keeps his socks?" She gestured to the pile of clean laundry stacked in her arms.

"Anywhere," Ginny said. "You know how Ron's room is like a war zone all the time. I doubt he'd mind if you placed his socks somewhere different."

Hermione, however, continued to stand at the doorway chewing her lip. Ginny tried not to laugh.

"Oh, very well, you neat freak. Follow me."

She walked into Ron's room, Hermione close behind. "Here, I'll take these," she said, collecting the socks from Hermione. "He usually puts them on this shelf inside—" She walked into the closet. At that moment, several things happened at once.

"Oy, Ron, I can't find any spiders here," a familiar voice said from inside the closet, just as Hermione slammed the closet door shut, and Ginny bumped heads with someone in the pitch-black room.

"Ow!" she cried, massaging her forehead.

"_Lumos!_" the voice shouted.

A light flickered on, and Ginny found herself face-to-face with Harry.

They stared at each other for a second. Ginny glanced around at the stuffy, clothes-strewn closet, and the closed door behind her, then turned back to Harry. Realization dawned in their eyes at the exact same moment.

"I don't believe it!" Ginny shrieked while Harry gave an unintelligible roar of rage. "They've locked us in!"

"HERMIONE! RON!" Ginny screamed at the top of her lungs, pounding against the closet door. "LET US OUT!"

No answer. Footsteps resounded away from the door, and Ginny knew they were walking away. She took out her wand. "_Alohomora_!"

Nothing happened.

She looked at Harry, who shrugged.

"Well," she said furiously, "I don't think Hermione has any right to complain if I blast the door off. _Reducto_!"

Nothing happened.

"She must have put some protective spells on the door," Harry said, inspecting it. "Here, let me try something." He crouched down and muttered a spell under his breath. Ginny couldn't see any effects, but remained silent as Harry continued to work.

"Right," he said, standing up, "they've put some sort of motion sensory spell in this space. I bet Ron wanted to spy on us, but Hermione would have said that was indecent. So to give us privacy and yet still find out when we've started being civil to each other, she's cast this spell."

"How does it work?"

"From where they are, Ron and Hermione will be able to know how much and how quickly we move, in real time, and our distance from each other. And with that, they'll be able to find out if we're getting along with each other, I suppose."

Ginny was grudgingly impressed. "Did you learn this stuff in Auror training?"

"Yeah. It's been pretty useful, I must say."

She stood a little straighter and crossed her arms. "Well, Mr. Auror-in-Training, I don't suppose you could find a way for us to get out of here?"

He muttered a few more spells, then shook his head. "Hermione's put some pretty complicated spells on the door. I don't think I'd be able to break them for a couple of hours."

"A couple of hours! You're kidding. I am _not _staying in here for a couple of hours."

"Do you think that's how I want to spend _my_ day? Do tell me if you have other ideas," he said sarcastically.

Ginny ignored him and sat down, thinking.

"Well?" he prompted.

"Shut up, I'm thinking," she snapped.

But she couldn't think. Harry was much too close. She tried to edge to the corner of the closet furthest from him, but the closet was so small that she could barely put two feet between them. She kept her eyes carefully fixed onto the floor.

"Still thinking?"

She glared at him. "I can't believe they did this. I would have expected this out of Ron, but not Hermione. Can you believe their nerve? I think—oh Merlin, I think even Mom was in on this!"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, it's really…" His mouth twitched.

Ginny looked at him disbelievingly. "Harry Potter. Are you _laughing_?"

"No! No, of course not! What makes you think that?" But there it was again, that twitch of the lip.

"You are! You think this is _funny_!"

"No! Well… maybe a little bit… You have to admit, Ron and Hermione were pretty ingenious. Ron was screaming about spiders in his closet, and I was completely convinced—"

"Harry! We're stuck in a closet together! I can't believe you think this is funny!" She jumped to her feet and promptly banged her head into the closet ceiling. "OW!"

Harry winced. "Sit down, Ginny. Don't hurt yourself."

Ginny scowled and remained standing, massaging her head.

They sat in silence for a while. Ginny began to count the seconds in her head.

_Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six…_

"You know what?" Harry said suddenly.

"What?"

"I think this is the most we've said to each other all year."

"That's not true."

He looked at her. She sighed. "Okay, fine, it's a little bit true."

_Ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three…_

She looked at him and opened her mouth, desperate to break the silence. But instead, she found herself watching the shadows from the wandlight dance across his face. She saw his green eyes, illuminated, his tousled hair that was as hopeless as ever.

_One hundred twenty, one hundred twenty-one…_

She looked away. Her mind was empty. Why couldn't she think of anything to say? What did she even want to convey? An apology? A reassurance of some sort?

_Two hundred, two hundred and one, two hundred and two…_

"I have an idea," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"Stay there." He straightened up, closed the distance between them, and kissed her on the mouth.

Ginny pulled back slightly, shocked. "Harry, what the hell—"

"Just wait," he said, and she realized with a thrill she certainly should not be feeling that Harry had wrapped his arms around her and was continuing to kiss her. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she pressed herself closer against his body and kissed him back.

And then, sure enough, footsteps, and the closet door was flung open. Hermione looked thunderstruck, Ron ecstatic albeit a little disgusted.

Ginny disentangled herself from Harry with as much dignity as she could muster.

"That was brilliant—that was even faster than I expected!" Ron said gleefully to Hermione, but Hermione stood chewing her nails, looking worriedly at Ginny.

Without a word, Ginny pushed her way past them, walking too fast for anyone to catch up, and locked herself in her room.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Ginny had been sitting on her bed for ten minutes, trying but failing miserably not to think about the way it felt to kiss Harry, when she heard a three quiet knocks on her door.

"Go away, Hermione," she said.

"Ginny." Hermione sounded hurt. "Can I come in?"

Ginny remained stonily silent.

"Ginny, I'm _sorry_. Please let me in."

Ginny sighed and crossed her room to the door, unlocking it for Hermione.

"Thank you," said Hermione, closing the door behind her. "And I really am sorry."

Ginny struggled to find words. "It's just that… you lied to me, Hermione. You told me that Harry wasn't going to be here today so I came. And maybe that was immature of me, but I don't think it was any less immature for you to trick us into being together."

"I know. I know, and I'm sorry. I never should have gone along with the plan. Ron thought that locking you two together in an enclosed space for a short period of time would solve everything, and I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I agreed. But you know I didn't mean any harm, don't you? I just wanted so much for you and Harry to be friends again."

"And locking us together in a closet was the way to do it," Ginny said shortly. But she felt herself softening despite herself. "It's all right," she said before Hermione could apologize again.

Hermione's mouth curved upward into an uncertain smile. "Really?"

Ginny sighed. "Yes, really."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"So that kiss, huh?" Hermione ventured, her face unreadable.

"He only did it so that we could get out faster."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"What?"

"Do you still have feelings for him?"

Ginny hesitated a moment too long. "No."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up into her hair again, but to Ginny's relief, she decided not to pursue the subject. "Well, even so, don't you want to be friends with him again?"

"Of course I want to be friends with him."

"But that's not going to happen if you don't try, is it?" Hermione said gently. When Ginny didn't reply, she continued softly, "Please try. For my sake. You and Harry are two of the most important people in my life, and maybe it's selfish of me to say this, but I really, really want things to be good between you two, if for no other reason than to hang out with both of you without taking sides."

"All right," Ginny sighed. "But I hope you have this conversation with Harry too because I don't want to be the only one trying."

"Don't worry." Hermione hesitated for a moment. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"Well, I can't really be, can I?" Ginny said, her face breaking into a small smile. "I guess I can't blame you—if I had thought of it a couple years ago, shoving you and Ron in a closet together would have been the perfect way to get you guys together."

Hermione laughed. Ginny began to laugh as well. Suddenly, the situation seemed unbearably funny and they laughed until they were breathless.


End file.
